Letter from the Pastor
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October 29, 2023Last week, I was walking past our school. The Parent’s Association put up a very cute display for Halloween, blow-up balloons of pumpkins, a few friendly looking ghosts and a lawn sign, “Happy Halloween.” One of the parents saw me walking by, and said to me that he didn’t think Catholics celebrated Halloween. It threw me a bit, and then I said, why not, Catholics started Halloween, like most holidays.
Halloween is a Catholic holiday, part of a three-day celebration, along with All Saints and All Souls. Halloween customs spring from a religious background, such as baking “Soul Cakes” to hand out as treats and jack-o-lanterns to ward evil spirits away. It is important for us to maintain the Catholic meaning and purpose of these days. Our secular society has usurped all our holidays.
Halloween is also an American holiday. The Catholic immigration of the Irish, Scots, English, and French brought with them various customs and feasts during the mid 1800’s. Dressing up for Halloween comes from the French, jack-o’-lanterns come from the Irish, and the English begged from door to door, and promising to pray for the departed loved ones of those who gave them treats in return. These customs have become entangled over the years into what we know Halloween to be today.
Halloween has become one of the most important holidays of the year, with millions of children and adults dressing up as their favorite heroes, superstars, ghouls and goblins. The National Retail Federation expects Americans to spend a staggering $12.2 billion this Halloween.
While some people have connected Halloween to earlier pagan Celtic celebrations of a new year, which began on November 1, Halloween actually has significant Catholic roots.
The name itself comes from All Hallow’s Eve – that is, the Vigil of All Saints’ Day, when Catholics remember the saints in Heaven. The next day on November 2, the Church commemorates all the faithful departed still in Purgatory. The memory of the dead naturally leads to thoughts of mortality, and the liturgical focus on the end of this world during this period of the Church year adds to the atmosphere of gloom.
Halloween needs to be seen and connected to All Saints Day. The word “Halloween” comes from an old English term, “hallows,” meaning “holy”; and “e’en”, a truncation of the word ‘evening’, in reference to the Vigil of the feast.
When we think of ghosts, goblins, and skeletons, they are reminders of death and of the last things: death, judgment, heaven, and hell. Our focus should be, since we all must die and are destined to the judgment of Christ, how then how are we to live?
So don’t distance yourself from Halloween. Quite the opposite, we need to reclaim it in all its mysterious holiness. Life is fleeting but, even though death is frightening, no evil will ever take us from God, not even death. There’s a life beyond this one, and the saints show us the way to it.
So when the little ones come to your door, it’s a wonderful chance to tell them how good they are, how God loves and protects them with their angels and saints.
Enough of the adult explanation of Halloween, little kids have the proper perspective on Halloween:
Ask a kid, “What is Halloween”? They will tell you with a philosophers’ smile: it’s the candy!
